Domestic violence: Tackling domestic violence is now an integral part of Amnesty International's agenda, according to Sean Love, director of Amnesty's Irish branch writes Lorna Siggins, Western Correspondent.
"Anyone with any conscience, particularly men and boys, should hear these stories," Mr Love said in Galway last week, speaking at the publication of a manual on domestic violence which was compiled by women living in Connemara and north Galway.
Entitled Living to Tell the Tale...as told by survivors of domestic violence, the manual relates harrowing first-hand accounts of the effects of physical and mental abuse, examines the impact on children, and gives advice and information on support services for victims caught in violent domestic situations.
The 10 women who helped to compile the document don't describe themselves as "victims", but as "survivors". The women, of various ages and backgrounds, took part in a 30-week training programme run by Domestic Violence Response based in Recess, Co Galway.
Paying tribute to their courage, Dr Rebecca Pelan, of NUI Galway's Women Studies Centre, said the issue of domestic violence was often not seen as part of the humanitarian agenda, and there was an "ongoing tension" among feminists about the issue within a humanitarian context.
Dr Pelan welcomed Amnesty International's decision to attach priority to the area, including commissioning research. She also paid credit to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform for sponsoring the manual.
Introducing the content of the work, Liz Power and Evelyn Glynn said the participants had also produced a drama, entitled Home Truths, as part of their training programme.
This drama, which was performed at the function in the Bank of Ireland Theatre, NUI Galway, was "otherworld, ethereal and powerful", and "showed us what beauty was when it is not pretty", Ms Power said.
The stories of love betrayed, lives physically and mentally scarred are recorded in the manual, with some of the women recalling events of over 40 years ago which are still painfully fresh in their memory.
One of the contributors, named 'Felicity', relates how the relationship with her husband deteriorated when their economic circumstances took a downturn. "I had more black eyes than a boxer in a ring," she writes. "I could never do anything right for him; it was never good enough It was like walking on glass when he was around, trying to please him all the time."
After two miscarriages, several horrendous experiences of forced sex and years of torture, she left her husband.
"There is a lot I could write about, but I don't want to remember it," she records. "When I look at myself - my body, my image, my heart, my brain, I feel every bit of it. That is why I am afraid of the dark."
There are stories of the "perfect couple" who were anything but, the woman who fell for the "real charmer", the women who were raped by their husbands and found it so difficult to get anyone to believe them.
The participants write about the impact on children and families, their mixed experience of social providers, and of their efforts to heal and move on.
There is some analysis of the causes of domestic violence, the common characteristics and tactics of perpetrators, and a salutary, if sober, warning from 'Rebecca'.
"Once a relationship starts becoming abusive, it's never going to stop," she writes. "Before you get too involved, you should get out. Once he's put his hand on you or abuses you once, it's going to continue. I don't care what they say about anger therapy and stuff. Personally myself, I don't think that works. I think if it's in them, it will be in them."
Justice is the one glaring omission in the manual, the facilitators from Domestic Violence Response noted at its publication. None of the perpetrators described in the text had ever served a sentence for his actions, she noted.
One of the manual's key recommendations is for provision of more focused training within the State services - ranging from gardaí to social and health workers - on the issue.